Pollarding and propagating mulberries

Remember how I wrote
about my plans to pollard
the mulberry?
I kept putting it off because I was scared, but eventually I talked
myself into lopping the top off the current tree.

If I'd figured out my
pruning plan a year ago, I could have shaped the tree then and not lost
so much growth, but it's not really a loss. I ended up with a big
handful of hardwood cuttings to experiment with.

I mailed a third of them
off to a reader who wants to try grafting Illinois everbearing
mulberries onto the weedy, seedling mulberries he has growing in his
yard. I'm extremely curious to hear how his experiments turn out
since my mom has similar weed mulberries around --- I could end up with
lots of mulberries if I grafted
onto her weeds.

I let the rest of my
cuttings suck up willow
rooting hormone
overnight, then tossed half into a pot and half directly into a nursery
bed. Hopefully I'll learn which propagation method works best and
will soon have lots of everbearing mulberries to play with in my
pastures.

Thanks for the source for rooting Illinois Everbearing! We're planning on trying softwood cuttings this year too, and I wonder if part of the author's problem with getting them to root was taking the cuttings at the end of July. The Reference Manual of Woody Plant Propagation recommends June for mulberry softwood cuttings and says that, in general, its best to take softwood cuttings at the beginning of the possible period rather than at the end.

I'll be interested to hear how your grafting goes! What are you planning to graft onto?

We're adding a couple more mulberry varieties this year, and I've got my eye on a very prolific bearer (no idea what variety) to graft onto something once I find some free rootstocks.

I've acuiqred pakistan and townsend mulberries. This year i got some grafts of Oscar whicn i've grafted on mulberries seedlings.
Next year i plan to graft Geraldi dwarf, IE and paradis if i can find grafts. I would like to use gerarldi as intergraft to dwarf other mulberries cultivars. But it is very difficult to find in europe.

Comment by
Nicolas M.
— in the wee hours of Tuesday night, March 13th, 2013